Designed from birth

I often wonder if I would be a different person if I had been born, say, a Cancer. Would I still have the traits of a Scorpio or would the fact that I was born months earlier completely rewrite my personality?

It’s an interesting theory that we all can look to our star signs and find out who we really are at the core of our beings. To gain direction from the heavens, so to speak, so we know how we’ll react in almost any situation.

However, a large part of me feels like that is a cop out. To say that because I was born in the first part of November, I am inherently a sexual, cunning, and clever creature, thus makes my own experiences and my own personality invalid as what made me me no longer matters. It is saying that no matter what I’ve lived to learn how to be me, no matter what I taught myself; it was all predestined to make me “fit” my star sign regardless of what I might have been through.

And yet...funnily enough, when I heard about this challenge I almost dismissed it as not interested. I almost turned my back on it because who in their right mind would like to know that whatever they’ve been through to make the person they are is a moot point when who you are is written in the stars? I will be the first to admit that there was a time in my life when I was interested in the metaphysical. I never looked into astrology much, but I did have fun with my horoscopes. I fancied the Wiccan belief system and I lived by my own set of principles and beliefs.

It didn’t last long, although, to be fair, I have never lost my interest in the paranormal. But even when I was immersed in alternative belief systems, I stayed away from astrology. It always left me vaguely on edge to think that what I had been through, what I had lived, was nothing more than the stars way of getting it right.

I refused to believe that nature was that cruel. That the nature/nurture argument was invalid and everything was predestined. That would mean that the horrors I grew up with, that shapes me to be the person I am, were always going to happen. That my life had been set in stone before I even drew my first breath and I could not bear to give credence to that thought.

I grew up in a, how shall I put this, a broken home. I was isolated even while standing in a group, I was alone and yet surrounded. I was the preferred child in a family of six children and it was as great and terrible as you can imagine. I was the star, the center of our own little universe, and I was hated for it. Hated and loved in equal measure. And that is all I will say about it.

It gave me perspective. It gave me independence, even while teaching me to expect the world to wait on me hand and foot. It made me strong, yet cruel. It made me conceited and uncaring of who I hurt. It made me...not a good person. It took me years to finally acknowledge that in the “real” world, I was just a speck of consciousness in a vast sea of other personalities. No one would care for me the way I believed I deserved and I needed to get off my pedestal and learn how to fend for myself. Truthfully, I am still working on learning that.

All that to say, I have a rather warped opinion of myself and I would like to believe that if I had been born in another time and another place, I would not be the person I am now. So you can see how astrology, the literal science of who we are, can be a bone deep contention to me, yes?

That being said, I finally sucked it up for this challenge and went to work to see if my sign was in any way accurate. And sadly, it was in most ways. I looked into the 21 personality characteristics of Scorpios and found that there I was, in black and white. Almost as if someone had had a recipe of what they wanted in a person and cooked me up. It was disheartening, it was maddening, and it was...correct.

The main personality trait that everyone expects of Scorpios is so inherently me that I laughed. At least it was me, ten years and 75 pounds ago. That trait was an overblown sexuality that tended to make us the charmers, the seducers, the vixens of the zodiac signs. We are the incubi/succubi of the star signs if this was a paranormal world. We thrive on sex and the chase and being able to get ahead with just a few smiles, some small touches and a look in exactly the right moment to get what we want. But that is not all we are.

We are also the cunning. We are clever and we are extremely perceptive. We can see through most any lie, we can find almost any hidden truth and we are the ones that ruin movies and tv shows for everyone else as we can see where the writers are leading everyone before anyone else. We have an intrinsic ability to decipher bullshit and get to the grit of what anyone is selling us. It makes it very hard to be in the presence of a Scorpio when you are trying to hide something.

With all of that, it should come as no surprise that we are one of the most mistrusting star signs out there. We give off a mysterious air and an aloofness that drives other signs mad, but the truth is, it is just that we simply cannot be bothered to trust easily, to believe the words coming out of others mouth without double, and even triple, checking them. We can stand in front of someone and know when they are being truthful, but we also recognize half truths and it makes us leery to involve ourselves with just anyone. It takes a lot of time and effort to be able to get a Scorpio to trust and open up to people. Believe me, I know, just ask my ex husband.

But the flip side to that mistrust is the almost total way a Scorpio loves. Once you’re in, you’re in. In our heart, in our soul, and we try to make damn sure that you are in our lives for the rest of ours. We love totally and completely, almost blocking out reality and making you the center of our universe. We are stage four clingers when we get to that point and no one will ever be loved as much as when a Scorpio finally falls.

There it is. That is it. That is me in a nutshell, the good and the bad, the great and the worst. There are plenty other points and personality traits I could go over, but I don’t want this to turn into a novel (insert laugh here), and I have said my piece. While I hate that my personality was written as if by an uncaring hand, there is also something cathartic about knowing that my strengths and most especially, my flaws were going to be no matter what happened and didn’t happen to me. It leaves me with both a sense of relief and a little cessation in the guilt I feel from my actions and feelings in the past. While I take full responsibility for my actions, to know that I would have done the same things in different ways in any circumstance, provides much needed release to all the negative emotions housed inside me. So, in a way, I am truly grateful I took the time to do this challenge. Thank you Vocal, for being interested in the stars. Their words are now written across my heart.